


Normal Tuesday Night

by pocky_slash



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Dating, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-22
Updated: 2010-11-22
Packaged: 2017-11-04 12:04:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Tuesday night is Date Night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Normal Tuesday Night

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://solsticezero.livejournal.com/profile)[**solsticezero**](http://solsticezero.livejournal.com/) for looking it over and [](http://heddychaa.livejournal.com/profile)[**heddychaa**](http://heddychaa.livejournal.com/) for the encouragement on Twitter. Um. So. Not my usual thing. And I'm nervous about posting it. But here goes.

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."  
\--Albert Camus, _The Myth of Sisyphus_

***

"Do I need to change?"

Mickey almost dropped his mug of tea. Ianto moved around the Hub silently and one of these days he was going to get used to it, but it had only been a week that Mickey was properly in Cardiff and that day was still long off. Right now the man in question was leaning his forearms against the railings of the autopsy bay. Martha was clearly startled as well, but Gwen's glance upward was only one of vague interest.

"Your turn this week, then?" she asked Jack, before glancing back at the photos in her hands.

"Yup. It's gonna be a good one," Jack said with a wink.

Ianto rolled his eyes.

"Anyway," Ianto said. "Appropriate clothing?"

"Casual," Jack said. "You can leave now. I'll pick you up."

"In the sedan, please," Ianto said. "Or take my car and I'll walk home."

"Whatever you say," Jack said.

Gwen coughed something that might have been ' _whipped_ ' and Ianto cheerfully flipped her off.

"Coffee's in the pot," he called over his shoulder as he left. "See you in the morning Martha, Mickey, Gwen."

And he was gone. Jack watched his retreating back for a moment and then turned to the rest of them.

"You guys can finish up here and then take the night off. Gwen, you're on call?"

"It's Tuesday," Gwen said in confirmation. "Have fun!"

Jack winked again, and then he was gone too, with a bit of a spring in his step if Mickey wasn't mistaken.

"What the bloody hell was that about?" Mickey asked once Jack had left.

"Search me," Martha said

Gwen gave them both a wide gap-toothed grin. Her grins still unnerved Mickey, just a little. "It's Tuesday," she said, as if that explained everything. When neither Mickey nor Martha reacted, she added, "It's Date Night." The silence continued. Gwen sighed. "Ianto and I go out on Thursday nights. Jack got a bit shirty about the whole thing, so Tuesdays became Date Night, rift permitting, of course."

"Date Night," Mickey said flatly.

"Well, good for them," Martha said, packing up her medical instruments for the night. Mickey was still perplexed. Date Night. That was so... normal.

"Huh," he said. "Date Night. Who'd have thought?"

***

Getting dressed for a night out with Jack was always a bit of a shot in the dark. Jack took courting seriously and their proper relationship started off almost achingly traditionally once Jack was back from his...sabbatical, but his idea of dates were a little more...well. Unique. There was generally a meal involved and then some sort of activity, but those ranged from antiquing to the cinema to art classes. Ianto could never predict in advance, and Jack never gave the game away until they were there.

Casual, Jack said, so Ianto changed out of his suit and into a pair of jeans and then spent some time studying his closet. He didn't want to risk wearing a work shirt after the paintball incident. He settled for a v-neck jumper over a t-shirt. He could lose the jumper if mud or mess looked imminent.

He didn't bother fixing his hair and wondered, with a vague sort of horror, if that meant that he and Jack were turning into one of those settled, established couples who stopped trying. He'd spent thirty minutes fixing his hair the night before that stomach-churning first date all those months ago. He stopped in front of the mirror and feebly poked at the curls forming around his ears, when he heard a key in the door.

"Is my car still in one piece?" he asked.

"I'm an excellent driver," Jack protested. "It's just everyone else on the road that needs to learn a thing or two."

Ianto met Jack's eyes in the mirror and gave him a look.

"Ready to go?" Jack asked, crossing the room and fixing his own hair in the mirror over Ianto's shoulder.

"Whenever you are," Ianto said. Jack smiled at him in the mirror and Ianto couldn't help but smile back, though he refused to acknowledge how sappy and soft the smile was.

"Let's go, then," Jack said.

***

There was a street fair that Ianto had somehow completely forgotten about--paper lanterns hanging cris-cross over their heads as they wandered through stalls filled with food and hot drinks and trinkets. A street musician played Beatles covers and Jack told highly improbable stories about John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Ianto didn't question them, in the spirit of the evening, until he started in on Stu Sutcliffe in a situation so improbable that Ianto snorted hot cider up his nose.

"You're impossible," Ianto said, giving Jack a light shove. "I don't believe anything you say, you know."

"You believe the important stuff," Jack said, sliding an arm around his waist. Ianto ducked his head to hide his blush and indulgent smile and didn't step out of Jack's grip. It wasn't entirely comfortable--their strides weren't quite in step--but he had faith that they would sync up, given time.

Ianto bought a necklace he thought Gwen would like from a pretty freckled teenager and leaned comfortably against Jack's shoulder, listening to him haggle spiritedly over the price of imported organic chocolate with a German man. The street musician sang "Let It Be," Jack held his hand, and not for the first time, Ianto realized that, despite all of the shit that Torchwood threw at them, he was incredibly blessed to have a job where he could see amazing things and meet and fall in love with an amazing man.

They wove in and out of the crowd with hot kebabs until they found a patch of vacant grass. Jack handed Ianto his kebab and then shrugged out of his coat and spread it on the ground like a picnic blanket.

"Really, Jack?" Ianto asked. "And who do you think will be getting the grass stains out of that tomorrow morning, hm?"

"My secretary usually handles it, but I think he's got a thing for me, so he won't complain too much," Jack said, dropping onto the coat and sitting with his legs spread. He held up a hand for his kebab and gestured for Ianto to join him. He did, with a put-upon sigh, sitting cross-legged between Jack's calves. Behind them, a little girl cheerfully danced in the street lamp to "Mother Nature's Son."

"How's the book coming?" Jack asked. His mouth was full, of course, because Jack's brand of charming somehow managed to work despite the fact that he was utterly devoid of basic manners. Ianto raised an eyebrow and Jack closed his mouth hastily.

"I spend nearly twenty-four hours a day with you and for the last week and a half, most of those hours have been spent at the Hub," Ianto said. "When, exactly, have I had time to catch up on my reading?"

"You were reading this morning," Jack said.

"Right up until someone woke up demanding waffles," Ianto pointed out. "You have the most peculiar food cravings."

"Hey, it was a good choice, wasn't it?" Jack asked. "Ninety-nine percent of my choices are good." Ianto gave him a look. "Well, eighty percent. Seventy-five. Fifty. Some of them, at least."

"This was a good choice," Ianto allowed. He gestured with his freehand to the people and the booths and the lights and the music. Jack smiled.

"I thought you'd like it," he said.

***

There was a brief scuffle over the seating arrangement when they finished their dinner, but Jack won in the end and pulled Ianto back against his chest. Ianto felt that it was a bit intimate for public, but Jack insisted that it was his date and they were both perfectly decent (for the moment). Ianto knew to choose his battles.

The little girl dancing in the street lamp was being led away by her parents, and the crowd had thinned out as the night wore on. Ianto didn't much mind. Watching the lights and laughter was still relaxing in the comfortable silence that fell between the two of them. He liked moments like this, moments when he realized that his decision to return to Torchwood after the disaster with Lisa wasn't the death of any lingering chances he had at regular life. He could still have a quiet night out with no mention of aliens and no dark self-loathing. Sure, it wasn't the life he imagined for himself, but the more he thought on it, the more he realized that the life he imagined hadn't been all that realistic to begin with. It certainly couldn't have made him this happy.

"Thinking hard," Jack murmured against the warm skin behind his ear.

"Not really," Ianto said. "You?"

"A bit," Jack said. "About how I like Tuesday nights."

"So I gathered," Ianto said. "You were very insistent about them. I think Gwen was a little offended."

"It's my favorite night of the week," Jack said. "On Tuesday nights, I feel completely normal."

Something heavy and sharp constricted in Ianto's throat, and he was suddenly glad that Jack had won their seating squabble. He wasn't quite comfortable with Jack seeing the look in his eyes just then.

"I'm glad," he managed to say, the soft volume belying the vulnerability in his voice. He cleared his throat. He tried not to think about the great expanse of time ahead of Jack and how little of it Ianto would take up, in the long run. He tried not to think of words like "impossible thing" and "eternity," but he knew how sacred "normal" was to a man who had no choice but to be constantly aware of those things, and his heart squeezed in affection and victory at the notion that he, Ianto Jones, twenty-five and Earth-bound, could offer it.

"Jack," he said quietly, "this was--this was a good choice. This was--" He wasn't sure what he was trying to say-- _I love you_ , maybe, or _I like feeling normal too_.

"Ssh," Jack said. "I know."

The hell of it was, he probably did.


End file.
